Linux Kernel 5.8 is Now Available

Linus Tovalds (the creator of Linux) has called the 5.8 kernel the "Biggest release of all time." That kernel is now available for installation.

The majority of the 5.8 kernel is code cleanup, driver support, security improvements, and low-level optimizations, which translates into not a lot of user-facing features. To put this into perspective, Torvalds said this:

But again, 5.8 is up there with the best, despite not really having any single thing that stands out. Yes, there’s a couple of big driver changes (habanalabs and atomisp) that are certainly part of it, but it’s not nearly as one-sided as some of the other historical big releases have been.

Some of the new features include support for Qualcomm Adreno 405/640/650, AMDGPU TMZ, Tiger Lake SAGV, POWER10 CPUs,  Arm SoC, Tigert Lake Thunderbolt (for Intel's Gateway SoCs), as well as a new AMD Energy Driver.
Although you might be tempted to upgrade to the new 5.8 kernel, remember that your distribution of choice may not include their own supported drivers and patches. Because of this, you might not want to jump right in and install the latest kernel on a production machine. Install 5.8 on a test platform and kick the tires, before you decide to go ahead on migrating any mission critical machine.